What is the place of memory in Buddhist thought and practice? Does “living in the moment” require letting go of the past, or coming to terms with it? Memento, a film about someone who has lost the ability to form short-term memories, will be used to ponder the often conflicting Buddhist theories about the role of memory in experience, consciousness, and meditation.—Robert Sharf

“A remarkable psychological-puzzle film, a crime conundrum that explores the narrative possibilities of noir, Memento turns its detective hero Leonard Shelby into a surrogate for the spectator, its backward narrative logic forcing us to embark on the kind of investigative work Shelby is engaged in. Shelby—played utterly convincingly by Guy Pearce as a combination of dogged determination and gaping bewilderment—is a former insurance investigator who, since his wife’s rape and apparent murder, suffers from a condition that makes him unable to form new memories. But despite his severely limited powers of recollection he has vowed to find his wife’s killer. . . . The final scene, which seemingly completes the narrative jigsaw . . . is a stunning tease, a tantalizingly ambiguous note on which to sign off, one that scatters our sense of certainty as we rerun the events of the past two hours in our heads.”—Sight & Sound

• Written by Nolan, based on a story by Jonathan Nolan. Photographed by Wally Pfister. With Guy Pearce, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano, Mark Boone Jr. (113 mins, Color, 35mm, From Newmarket Films)